No MacBook iPad hybrid coming from Apple says CEO Tim Cook

Following the success of their tablet PC hybrids, Asus released the Transformer Pad series. Transformer Pad 300 and 700 – as with Primes – originally sell as slates with optional $150 keyboard docks. Eventually, word spread that Apple is investing on a similar idea with a rumored MacBook iPad hybrid. Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed the rumor earlier this week, right after the company made its second quarter earnings call.

Talks about the MacBook iPad hybrid emerged when an analyst asking about Windows 8 brought it up. Tim Cook says that combining these two products would be a “compromise” to end users. “Anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about tradeoffs, and you begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left doesn’t please anyone,” he said.

Here’s the thing. Apple sold 47 million iOS devices within the second fiscal quarter in contrast to just 4 million Macs. Analysts expected higher Mac sales for the same quarter. If Apple were to combine both products, the end product might not please as many users. This isn’t the first time Apple dished the idea of adding touch features on Macs. Last February, Tim Cook called desktop computing unintuitive during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“Other people have tried that with desktops,” Tim Cook said while referring to computers with touch-sensitive screens, “and I think to say it hasn’t caught traction is probably an understatement of the year.”

When Steve Jobs was alive, he also expressed dislike for desktops that had touch-sensitive display and call them “ergonomically terrible.” While introducing MacBook Air back in 2010, he said “We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.”

In the case of Asus however, nothing’s stopping them from releasing tablet PC hybrids. Their latest lineup is the Transformer Pad series which succeed Prime. Availability and pricing of Transformer Pad 300 was recently announced for the US market. The company even developed a smartphone which doubles as a tablet and a laptop – Asus Padfone. Users can opt to buy it as a smartphone-only package, with a tablet, or with tablet and dock.